Rafe Mair on cancelling his subscriptions to the Vancouver Sun and Province, following last week’s announcement by Publisher Gordon Fisher of upcoming cost increases to readers: “Mr. Fisher – If I don’t want a critical look at fish farms; if I don’t want a critical look at highways tearing up
Continue readingTag: Common Sense Journalism
The Common Sense Canadian home page: Calgary Flood one in growing list of recent Extreme Weather Events
Calgary’s flood, it seems, is just the latest in a growing frequency of extreme weather events that have been causing havoc nearly everywhere on the planet. While Canadian news was fixated on Alberta’s misfortune, the same weather system was causing unusual flooding in south-eastern BC. While Calgary was drowning, extreme
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: EcoEnergy money went to Carbon Capture, Tar Sands – No Clean Tech funding for this year
Clean tech innovation expert Will Dubitsky charges Stephen Harper’s announcement of EcoEnergy Innovation funding winners last month simply rehashed winners from 2011 and 2012, while the are no monies available for clean tech innovation over the coming year. “Note, as well, that 30% of the EcoEnergy Innovation Initiative funding awarded
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: EcoEnergy money went to Carbon Capture, Tar Sands – No Clean Tech funding for this year
Clean tech innovation expert Will Dubitsky charges Stephen Harper’s announcement of EcoEnergy Innovation funding winners last month simply rehashed winners from 2011 and 2012, while the are no monies available for clean tech innovation over the coming year. “Note, as well, that 30% of the EcoEnergy Innovation Initiative funding awarded
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Audio: Damien Gillis on ‘Multi-Issue Extremism’, Liberal Gas Agenda
Listen to Damien Gillis and Nanaimo’s CHLY host Rae Kornberger discuss how activism is becoming “extremism” – even terrorism – under the Harper Government’s petro-state regime. Invoking new, secretive anti-terrorism laws, federal agencies including CSIS and the RCMP are being directed to infiltrate, spy on and harass “multi-issue extremists”, whom
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: The $55 Billion Private Power Racket and Real Story Behind Hydro’s Debt
The Liberal Government and its private power pals are taking a page out of the neoliberal handbook, which aims to privatize anything of value. Here’s how it works: 1. You saddle a valuable public utility or asset with enormous debt through private sector contracts it doesn’t need (of course, the
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Working with Nature can Protect us from Floods
By failing to work with nature in building our cities, we’ve disrupted hydrological cycles and the valuable services they provide. Protecting and restoring rich forests, flood plains and wetlands near our urban areas is critical to reduce carbon emissions and protect against the effects of climate change. Nature effectively sequesters
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Rafe Mair on Mainstream Media a Decade after Leaving CKNW
It was ten years ago that I was unceremoniously dumped by CKNW, where I had been for 19 years. What does that have to do with an environmental web page? Modesty is not my long suit and I believe that had I stayed, the general public would have been infinitely
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Runaway Hydro Debt: Economist Erik Andersen’s Open Letter to BC Energy Minister
Since 2006/09 BC’s domestic electrical demand has mostly “flat-lined” at about 50,000 GWhrs, making liars out of the many at Hydro and elsewhere who forecasted demand closer to 70,000 GWhrs per year by 2012. The record is replete with examples of demand exaggerations from BC Hydro. Using the narrative of
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Why Story of Climate Change Fails to Capture Public’s Interest
According to the Guardian’s Oliver Burkeman, “the most important issues of our era aren’t particularly interesting. Worse than that, there’s good reason to believe in an inverse relationship between interestingness and importance.” For example, when global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide reached 400 parts per million for an entire day
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Liberal Lies on LNG, Hydro Debt, Budget Spell Fiscal Disaster for BC
Premier Clark promised us huge LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) revenues in a few years. We would be debt free and have $100 BILLION in the to-be-created “Prosperity Fund”. That was at the start of the election campaign. Then it became a year after the next election. Now, according to Mike
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Increasingly Irrelevant NDP Opposition Failed to Question LNG Pipe Dream
Gordon Clark in the Province this week called into question the relevance of the NDP and I’d like to add my two bits worth. The Clark government has bet its entire stack on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The NDP, through Energy critic John Horgan, supported LNG during the recent election.
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Video: Fracking, LNG Plans Deserve Same Scrutiny as Enbridge
Damien Gillis ties together a number of historical and current BC issues in this talk at the Village of Gitanmaax (Hazelton) in Gitxsan Territory on May 18. From the province’s colonial, resource-driven past to present-day plans for fracking, Liquefied Natural Gas, Site C Dam and Tar Sands pipelines and tankers,
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Morton: Salmon Virus Lab Stripped of World Body Certification
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), our global first line of defence against farm animal epidemics, just stacked the odds against stopping ISA virus from spreading in British Columbia. They stripped the lab I am using to track ISA virus of its international certification…I am going to make a
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Cycling is Smart but some Cyclists need to get Smarter
Despite the many arguments in favour of cycling, increased infrastructure always incites criticism – most of it unwarranted. And the behaviour of some cyclists doesn’t help. Two main criticisms are that bicycling initiatives hurt local businesses and impede car traffic. Numerous studies show the opposite is often true: over the
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Clean Tech Trade Wars: US, European Union vs. China and how FIPPA Hamstrings Canada
Canada is shooting itself in the foot with the China-Canada trade agreement – the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPPA). Specifically, a little known stipulation in the China-Canada trade agreement risks torpedoing the development of Canadian clean energy technology sectors. This stipulation calls for no commercial barriers on environmental
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: The Importance of Forgetting in the Digital Age
We live in an Information Age so we should be able to adequately inform ourselves, make thoughtful decisions and act on matters of importance. We certainly have enough environmental problems to solve these days. Yet we have been eminently poor at addressing most of them. Why? One of the answers
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Kool Topp & Guy: Did Lobbyists, Back Room Operators Kill BC NDP Campaign from Within?
On the eve of this weekend’s pivotal BC NDP Provincial Council, former senior staffer Kevin Logan examines the role back room operators played in the party’s recent failed campaign. From perennial puppet master Brian Topp to former Enbridge lobbyist and Christy Clark Chief of Staff Ken Boessenkool, this little-known team
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Kool, Topp & Guy: Did Lobbyists, Back Room Operators Kill BC NDP Campaign from Within?
On the eve of this weekend’s pivotal BC NDP Provincial Council, former senior staffer Kevin Logan examines the role back room operators played in the party’s recent failed campaign. From perennial puppet master Brian Topp to former Enbridge lobbyist and Christy Clark Chief of Staff Ken Boessenkool, this little-known team
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Water Contamination from Fracking: Jessica Ernst Releases Groundbreaking Report
Jessica Ernst, a high-profile, Alberta-based environmental consultant, has released a comprehensive summary of science, facts and documents relating to groundwater contamination from the controversial practice of natural gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The culmination of ten years of research, the 93-page report is sure to cause a stir with the energy
Continue reading